Options for When You Don’t Want to Invest in a Whole Smart Home

The smart home is a tantalizing idea, but it’s one that can seem like it takes a little too much effort and too much investment for some. If you want a home with more interconnected devices that respond to you without the need to have to sit at a computer or control panel, but you’re not quite ready to make the leap into starting a whole smart home project, what are your options? Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Smarter speakers

Naturally, you have to take a look at what many consider to be the first steps into a “smart home 2.0.” The smart speakers do not have quite the functionality of a lot of smart home hubs, but they do connect to a lot of devices around the home. Which out of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant you prefer might depend on which devices you want them to connect to. Siri, for instance, connects to all Apple devices. There’s an increasing number of wireless devices compatible with these smart speakers, too, from lights to thermostats. Even if they don’t have quite the versatility of a smart home hub, they offer a decent taste of that life.

Smarter media

One of the most exciting ideas when it comes to the smart home is the ability to access all your media and entertainment from a single point. No need to fiddle with wires and controls, just one set of controls in charge of it all. Internet and TV providers are noticing this growing need, as you can see if you view Optimum here. Their Altice One is a smart media hub, connecting to TV, internet, Wi-Fi and streaming apps. Not only does it allow control of all of these, but it even comes with voice activation. Devices like these could be an easy way to never have to pick up a remote again.

Smarter security

Besides the entertainment and convenience aspect, the smart home is highly sought after for the advantages it can offer when it comes to the security of the home, too. Take a look at the top 5 security apps that can allow you remote control of all the security features in the home. From the alarm system to the CCTV, these apps make it easier to ensure your home is well protected even when you’re not there. More alarm systems are interconnecting with other security tech in the home, as well, helping them all share data, so it can identify and respond to threats quicker than ever before. These different security tech installations still require quite a bit of investment, but a smart home is no longer necessary to get more out of them, so you still save some money.

Beyond the ever-expanding list of tools that are designed to interact and cooperate with smart home hubs, there’s a whole range of devices that taking plenty of inspiration from them as well. We’ve only named a few examples here, but we expect this trend of wireless interconnectivity to continue to be a growing theme in the home tech to come, too.

Author

Eric Murrell

Eric is the creator of At Home in the Future and has been a passionate fan of the future since he was seven. He's a web developer by trade, and serves as the Director of Communication and Technology for a large church in Nashville, TN (where he and his family are building a high tech home in the woods).